Francis proved unexpectedly willing; perhaps his better nature was touched by the lovers' distress.

He also saw that Mary's marriage with Suffolk prevented her being used as (p.

083) a link to bind Charles to Henry; and he may have thought that a service to Suffolk would secure him a powerful friend at the English Court, a calculation that was partly justified by the suspicion under which Suffolk henceforth laboured, of being too partial to Francis.
Yet it was with heavy hearts that the couple left Paris in April and wended their way towards Calais.

Henry had given no sign; from Calais, Mary wrote to him saying she would go to a nunnery rather than marry against her desire.[194] Suffolk threw himself on the King's mercy; all the council, he said, except Wolsey, were determined to put him to death.[195] Secretly, against his promise, and without Henry's consent, he had married the King's sister, an act the temerity of which no one has since ventured to rival.

He saw the executioner's axe gleam before his eyes, and he trembled.
[Footnote 193: _L.